She walked into Kitty's room, wanting to borrow the other girl's geography textbook as she had left hers at school, and heard voices emanating from behind the door.
"...Does this look okay? Or what about this one? Or...no, wait, I think the pink one looks better don't you?" Kitty was squealing excitedly.
"Ugh, yeah, if you want to look like a puff of cotton candy," Scott's voice spoke up, the thinly masked distaste so obvious that she had to flinch. Jeez, that boy should learn the meaning of subtle one of these days, she thought to herself. Frowning, she pushed open the door and hesitantly poked her head inside.
"Can I come in?" A teasing smile suddenly lit her face. "Or am I interrupting anything?"
"Like, ew!" Kitty made a face, while Scott simply glared at her, despite the difficulty of doing so behind a pair of ruby-quartz shades.
"I'm trying to decide which dress to wear to the Backstreet Boys concert with Lance, and since Scott here was the only one in the mansion..." Kitty's voice trailed off, as she gave Scott a mock evil eye, before her face lit up again. "But now that a girl's finally arrived, help me choose: Which dress do you think is better, the red one or the blue one?"
She attempted to examine both items closely as Kitty held first one, then the other dress to her.
"I...I can't really tell," she finally stammered, when her eyes fell on an overly girlish, Barbie-type pink dress, and she said lamely, "Um...why don't you go with the pink?" Inwardly, she was cringing, as she realized that she'd just suggested the tackiest dress on display. Even Scott eyed her as though he believed her fashion sense had just gone down the drain.
"Sure, she can go with the pink...if she wants to look like Princess Bubblegum!" Scott remarked sarcastically. The name 'Princess' reminded her of Lance, and she inwardly cringed--she did not want to think about him right now, especially with Kitty in the room, especially when she knew he was taking Kitty out on a date--be it official or unofficial.
"You, Mister, have more than worn out your welcome," she growled, as she playfully propelled a startled Scott out the door. Slamming it shut behind her, she turned around and plastered a big smile on her face.

"Now, you were saying...?" she asked the other girl. Kitty gave her a wary look.
"Um, I don't know why I even pulled out that pink powder puff in the first place, it was a birthday dress I wore last year that my grandmother bought for me and insisted I wear it," she mumbled. "Eh...I think I'll just go with the red dress."
Which was a bit more sexy than she felt comfortable with, she realized.
"The red one? I...I don't think you should wear it," she stammered.
"Why?" Kitty asked questioningly. Why? That was a good one, she thought to herself, as she frantically ran through a list of reasons of why the perfectly fine red dress wouldn't be appropriate.
"Erm...because it makes you look kind of skinny," she finally mumbled out lamely, having decided that suggesting the dress made Kitty look either fat or slutty was just too plain mean.
"Oh." Kitty placed the red dress back onto her bed, and picked up the sky-blue one, studying it thoughtfully. "I guess I should go with this one, then."
"Right," she muttered. The blue one was still too stylish, and when Lance saw Kitty in it, she just knew he would fall head over heels for her--all over again. Under her breath, she muttered grumpily, "I still think you should have gone with the 'pink powder puff'."
"What? Did you say anything?" Kitty, who'd gone into the bathroom to change, called out curiously. Blushing, she quickly coughed and mumbled, "Erm...nothing at all."

Just then, Kitty stepped out of the bathroom, looking like an angel in her soft blue dress and pearls. She twirled around for effect, and asked eagerly, "Well? How do I look?"
Her friend managed a big, fake smile, as she chirped in an overly bright voice, "You look great!" Too great, she silently added, while keeping the cheerful smile plastered on her face. Kitty broke into a grin, and reached over and impulsively hugged her.
"Thanks," she said sweetly, then looked at her watch and squealed. "Oh, my gosh! Like, I don't know where the time went; the concert starts in a couple of hours and Lance was supposed to pick me up--five minutes ago!"
At that moment, Scott poked his head into the room.
"Prince Charming has arrived," he growled, trying unsuccessfully to hide the distaste from his voice. Kitty dashed excitedly toward her door, tottering slightly on her high-heeled sandals.
"This is, like, so cool!" she squealed. Turning around to the other girl in the room, she smiled and said, "Thank you so much for helping me out here, and not acting all weirded out that it's Lance! I mean, this is gonna be the best night of my life!"


"Lance Alvers is the biggest jerk on the planet, and this was the worst night of my life!" Kitty fumed, impatiently wriggling out of her coat and hurling it with a vengeance toward the couch.
"Ow! My head!" Scott whined, as the silky white object landed with a resounding smack against the back of his head. Kitty ignored him, and instead stomped up to her room, where the distinct sounds of paper ripping could be heard for the next couple of minutes. Scott turned to the young woman seated beside him, who had stood up when Kitty'd stormed in, and was now glancing worriedly in the direction of where the other girl had stomped off to.
"Eh...maybe you should go talk to her. You know, one of the girl talks that no guy could possibly hope to get," he suggested. She shot him a dirty look for his last comment, but nodded in agreement at his suggestion.
"You're right," she murmured, and headed off toward Kitty's room, her heart pounding as she wondered what could have possibly turned Kitty against Lance.

She mounted the steps, coming to a stop in the hallway in front of a certain freshman's room. After a few uncertain moments of hesitant waiting, she finally knocked lightly on the heavy oak door.
"Kitty? Can I come in?" she called out warily, unsure of whether to just walk in or ask for permission first. There was the sound of something being thrown across the room, and Kitty's muffled voice could be heard snarling, "Lance Alvers is the biggest creep in the world!"
"Er...I'll take that as a yes."
She hesitantly pushed the door open...and had to duck wildly to avoid the overstuffed maroon pillow that came hurtling through the air toward her.
"Wow, Kitty, calm down," she murmured, as her heartbeat returned to normal and she thanked whoever was out there that the object Kitty had thrown in her anger had been a harmless pillow.
"I hate Lance, and I hate all the Brotherhood boys, and I hate all boys!" Kitty fumed, and she could practically feel the rage oozing off of her. Stepping gingerly through the pile of clothes and stuffed animals strewn all over the carpet, she motioned toward the shreds of paper on the floor that had once been a glossy poster--before someone had come along and viciously torn it apart.
"Um...what's that poster of?" she asked hesitantly, wondering what could possibly be the answer. Kitty shot it a look of scornful distaste, before spitting out, "Backstreet Boys!"
"Right," the other girl murmured. Arching an eyebrow, she added, "And I guess that those are Jamie's Hardy Boys books burning in the fireplace, right?"
Kitty said nothing, just plopped facedown on her bed and sulked. Her companion gingerly took a seat at the edge of the bed, and cleared her throat awkwardly, before finally breaking the silence.
"Kitty, did something happen between Lance and you?" she asked quietly. Silence. She thought she heard a muffled sob coming from Kitty, whose face was buried in her pillows.
"Kitty, listen, I know I'm not your sister or best friend or anything, but us X-Men have got to stick together, and if there's anything you want to talk about, you can tell me," she spoke up. Her eyes fell on another glossy poster, and she winced. "And you don't have to cross out Lance Bass's face from the 'NSYNC poster first."
"Hn. I always liked J.C. better, anyway," Kitty muttered grumpily. Her friend cracked a smile. It appeared as if the other girl was going to open up.

"So...what happened?" she ventured to ask. After a few minutes of silence, her friend finally began to speak.
"I don't know what happened," Kitty said miserably. "I mean, I thought the evening was off to a wonderful start. It's not as if we had, like, the best seats in the arena or anything, but that wasn't what mattered, and we were just having fun. Or at least, I was having fun."
"And then what happened?" the other girl asked, her voice ending on an absurd high note as she tried to make it sound as neutral as possible.
"And I don't know what happened!" Kitty moaned. "I mean, Lance looked kind of embarrassed to be there to begin with, and there were all these thirteen-year-old teenyboppers trying to hit on him, and then for some reason, he got jealous of me because according to him, I was drooling when the Backstreet Boys came onstage! The nerve of him to accuse me of having wandering eyes, when he's the one with all the junior high school girls dangling from his arms!"
"He was probably just cranky. You know how guys are when it comes to pop music and especially boy bands," her friend spoke up reasonably.
"Well, he didn't have to be there! It was his idea to begin with, and then he takes out his jealousy and anger on me!" Kitty huffed, insulted. Her eyes darkened, as she added, "And he kept on calling me Princess a couple of times."
"Oh?" Her friend's voice rose several notches upon hearing that. Kitty nodded.
"Yeah," she confirmed. "I'm willing to bet he's got another girl wrapped around his finger somewhere, 'cause I know he never calls me Princess, and he'd get these weird looks--like he'd just slipped up and revealed some big secret--whenever he called me that."
Kitty hurled a stuffed dragon against the wall. "Ugh! What did I ever see in him?! I know I'm not, like, so shallow that I'll go out with someone based purely on his looks!"
"What...what are you saying?" she asked, trying to make her voice sound less hopeful than what she was feeling. Kitty scowled.
"I'm saying that Lance 'The Jerk' Alvers and I are through!" she hissed. She angrily reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of tickets, glaring daggers at them. "And to think I stood in line all morning just to get these stupid tickets for that stupid show of that stupid World Wrestling Federation! I am so never gonna waste this kind of time on a stupid boy again!"
"So, Lance likes the WWF?" She arched one eyebrow, somehow managing to keep her voice casual.
"Yeah." Kitty nodded viciously. "And now I'm going to take great pleasure in ripping these two tickets to pieces!"
"Er...maybe that's not such a wise idea," her friend spoke up quickly. "Here, if you don't want these tickets, I'll be glad to take them off your hands. I have a...um, friend...who's totally into pro wrestling."
"Are you sure you want them? I mean, with two over-muscled guys trying to destroy each other right in front of you, it's bound to get pretty wild out there," Kitty said questioningly.
"I'll be okay," her friend assured her. Kitty shrugged, and handed over the tickets.
"Sure, why not? I mean, if I had to look at anything that Lance likes for another second, I'd go crazy," she muttered. "So, who's your friend?"
"Oh, you wouldn't know him," the other girl replied vaguely. Clearing her throat, she ventured to ask, "Kitty?"
"Hmm?" The freshman was gathering up the remains of her Backstreet Boys poster to throw them into the fireplace. Turning around, Kitty was promptly confronted by a glossy poster, as her friend said, "I know you don't like Backstreet Boys and Lance Bass, but was it really necessary to draw Devil horns and a goatee on Scott Stapp on my Creed poster?"
Kitty broke into a guilty smile.
"Oh, oops. It's just that Scott Stapp's hairstyle kind of reminds me of Lance." She shrugged. "Sorry. Guess I got a little carried away."


Ding dong.
Pietro Maximoff flung the door open so fast that he nearly cracked the unfortunate visitor right in the nose, as the silver-haired youth poked his head out the house to bark crankily, "What?!" His irritable frown turned into a patronizing sneer, when he recognized the young woman standing on the door steps.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Little Miss--" he began to mock, before she cut him off impatiently.
"Pietro, I don't really have time for your little shenanigans today," she spoke tiredly. Clearing her throat, she began in a hesitant voice, "Is Lance home...?"
At that moment, there was the sound of fearsome rumbling, and a few tiny chunks of the cracked ceiling cluttered down onto the ground.
" 'Scuse me, will ya?" Pietro said in a falsely gracious tone, before turning his head to face upstairs and yelling, "Blob, how many times do I have to tell you, you're fat and blubbery because of your mutation, so there's no point in trying to exercise and lose weight!" The rumbling stopped, and Pietro turned back to his visitor with a satisfied look on his face. "Now, you were saying...?"
She was staring at him, openmouthed.
"How...how can you tell whether it's Fred or, you know, Lance?" she ventured timidly. At that, holier-than-thou Pietro gave her a what-are-you-stupid? look, before bragging, "Oh, it's really quite easy. See, the Blob tends to make these minor quakes--maybe a 5.4 on the Richter scale--while Rocky upstairs has a slightly more fearsome score of, oh, around a 12.1"
Just then, a terrifying quake nearly shook the house right out of its foundation. Pietro grimaced, as if his point had just been demonstrated.
"So, what brings one of you Mighty X-Geeks to the lowly Brotherhood abode?" he demanded snidely. She took a deep breath, wondering whether she should go through with what she had planned, before firmly pushing all doubts out of her mind and stating, "I want to talk to Avalanche." At this, Pietro gave her a questioning look, but for once refrained from opening his mouth.
"Oh Lance..." he began in a singsong voice.

"Hey there, Princess." Lance exited the Brotherhood house, closing the door firmly behind him. "What do you want to talk about? And if it's about Kitty, I want to let you know that I already got a threatening phone call from Summers."
She had to crack a smile at that comment.
"No, no, it's not about Kitty." She took a deep breath, before beginning to speak. "Um, you see, I have these two tickets to a--"
"Will you excuse me for just a second, Princess?" Lance had a weird smile on his face as he said those words. Her eyes widened, as Lance twisted the doorknob, and viciously slammed the door backwards. There was the sound of wood hitting flesh, followed a tumbling noise that ended in a resounding smack.
"Ouchy!" Pietro and Todd's voices could be heard ringing out. Lance once again closed the door, satisfied.
"Now, Princess, you were saying...?"
Her mouth had dropped open in surprise, before she quickly closed it. Blinking, she cleared her throat and mumbled out in a quick rush of words, "Um, it's just that I have two tickets for WWF Raw next Monday, and I was...um, I was wondering...if you would like to go with me?"


Aah, the plot thickens. I think I might have the candidate for the mystery girl narrowed down to three from the six possible candidates. What an improvement! Me feels very proud. Oh, and for those of you who don't know, Jamie is the twelve-or-thirteen-year-old new recruit Multiple. I figured he'd be the only one young enough to have a secret stash of Hardy Boys novels (and believe me, I know about those things--I mean, I read Babysitters' Club when I was eleven, and Sweet Valley High when I was thirteen. Yeesh, I can't believe how dumb I was!).